When Twitter first appeared on the virtual scene in 2006, I thought it was utterly frivolous and inanely obsessed with what someone ate for breakfast. It turned out that I was so wrong. Last week’s webinar on Twitter for Job Seekers further illuminated the substantial uses that have evolved wielding the power of the Twitter tool.

The webinar divided neatly into two segments:

• In the first half, Andrea Snyder focused on how a library can use Twitter to amplify the job and career services they provide;
• In the second half, Brooke Roegge focused on how users can find jobs through Twitter.

Andrea Snyder, manager of the Job & Career Information Center at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, has made active use of @JobCenter_Pratt Twitter stream to share job-seeker news, events and resources that the library has to offer. The tweets reach people on a different level, getting the word out to those who don’t often come in to the physical library. Andrea thinks the Twitter presence promotes her library as more of a person than an organization. She also makes the keen observation that the library’s use of Twitter is as much about listening as it is about broadcasting. She follows job-related hashtags (#jobs, #careers, #libs4jobs) to stay tuned in to the Twittersphere.

Brooke Roegge, digital information specialist at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (@PositivelyMN), revealed that thousands of job opportunities are posted on Twitter every day. Third-party Twitter job search tools have contracts with big employers, like Kaiser-Permanente, Starbucks, Wendy’s, the list goes on. Brooke described a number of strategies and tools job seekers can use to search for jobs and target their searches to specific industries and geographic locations. There are even smartphone apps for on-the-go job seekers.

Listen to the archive to:

• Hear more from Andrea about tools for tracking tweets, managing your tweeting time, and promoting your Twitter feed;
• Get the details from Brooke about Twitter job search tools;
• Read the chat log, in which the audience was actively engaged, sharing tools, insights, and answering each other’s questions.

For the tools we surveyed last year, we see little change. The most significant shift was in social networking: in 2010, 35% reported using Facebook, Twitter or similar on a daily basis, and 30% never used it–in either a professional or personal setting. This year, 46% use social networks daily in their personal life and only 19% report never using them. Professional use of social networks lags behind personal use, but the gains are still noteworthy, as only 28% of respondents report never using social networks for work. By the way, we are hosting presentations about use of social media in the library in two free webinars this month: get the details from the WebJunction webinar calendar.

Meanwhile, email discussion lists continue to be as popular as they have been for years, with 50% of respondents using them daily (and one-quarter report daily use even in their personal lives). These are long-established, tight-knit, semi-private communities that fill our in-boxes with tips and advice, success and horror stories, rants, jokes, and calls to action. Despite their definite 1.0 clunkiness, they are still useful and used . The discussion forum, however, which could be considered the Listserv’s web-dwelling cousin, seems to be fading fast, with only 6% of respondents reporting daily use in professional life (9% in personal life), and one-third stating they never use discussions (nearly one half never use them in their personal life).

The low level of use of RSS among library staff is (to me) surprising, with roughly half of respondents stating that they never use RSS. Because this tool seems like a practical and easy and efficient way to stay tapped into updated information and news on topics of interest published on the web, and because use of RSS among the general public is reportedly much higher, we are spotlighting a simple overview of this tool on WebJunction with the hopes that more library staff will give it a try.

Here are the full results from the 2011 survey question:

Michael and David are hoping that you will help build the project by adding your comments to the essays, to answer the question, What do you think librarians need to know to succeed?

Alison provided a wealth of data to illustrate the current trends in mobile reference services and referenced the nearly 100 libraries offering SMS (text) reference service listed on the Library Success Wiki. There were a handful of questions raised during the webinar about whether or not the 160-character limit allows for an adequate reference exhange or if it only serves to provide quick answers to quick queries.

There are multiple responses to these questions in the recent Library Journal article by Ellyssa Kroski which asks, Text Message Reference: Is It Effective? In the article, Ellyssa references interviews with a half a dozen or so academic reference librarians and presents their answer as a resounding YES! She summarized:

• The 160-character limit does not seem to be an impediment; librarians simply send multiple messages or ask patrons to call or come into the library for further help with more complex questions.
• Libraries are receiving a wide variety of questions via text messaging such as troubleshooting, directional, circulation, and reference queries, with some libraries receiving between 50-90 questions per month via patrons’ mobile devices.
• And it doesn’t seem to matter that the reference interview may take multiple text exchanges, according to these librarians—the content and quality of the answers is more important than the medium of delivery.

Whether or not your library is providing text message reference, I think the verdict is clear. The libraries who remain technologically nimble in our changing times are where their users are.

Join us on September 15 for Building the Digital Branch: Guidelines to Transform Your Website for the 21st Century, a webinar brought to you in special collaboration with ALA TechSource and WebJunction-Kansas.

David will present on the process his web team used at Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library (KS) to transform their outdated website into a 21st century digital branch. He’ll address the differences between a website and a digital branch, and describe the redesign process – everything from the introductory planning stages of overhauling their website to the process of actually “doing stuff” at the new digital branch.

Register for the webinar »
Read the excerpt: What Is a Digital Branch, Anyway? »